Whose Goose?

Indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington last week: James Riddle Hoffa, 44, a vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, boss of the teamsters' powerful Central Conference, with headquarters in Detroit, and challenger to I.B.T. President Dave Beck. The charges, all based on Hoffa's offer of $18,000 and payment of $3,000 for documents filched from the McClellan committee files (TIME, March 25): 1) bribery, with a possible penalty of three years' imprisonment and a fine of three times the bribe total; 2) conspiracy, five years and $10,000; 3) obstruction of justice, five years and $5,000. Listed among 24 overt acts was one that indicated that Hoffa's consuming interest was more in what the McClellan committee might do to Dave Beck than in what it might hang on Jimmy Hoffa. Remarking an some of the committee papers that had been given him, Hoffa said that it looked as if Beck's goose was cooked, then asked for more papers dealing with the McClellan committee's investigation of Beck. Thus, in his anxiety to watch the roasting of Beck's goose, Jimmy Hoffa put his own in the pan.

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